The launch of the first commercial 10G network in China is an event significant not only locally, but also for the entire immersive technology industry. 10G (in simple terms, a new generation of fixed Internet with speeds up to 10 Gbit/s) opens up completely new horizons for the XR direction (from the English words “Extended Reality” — it combines virtual, augmented and mixed reality technologies). Previously, even 5G seemed to be an advanced standard, but now China has taken a step further by deploying a network based on 50G PON technology and achieved impressive results: the actual data download speed is up to 9,834 Mbps, returns are over 1,000 Mbps, and delays have decreased to 3 ms. This is not an evolution, but a real leap that radically changes the possibilities of content delivery and user interaction.
XR without barriers: The impact of 10G on Virtual and Augmented Reality
More recently, VR and AR have experienced significant limitations due to insufficient network bandwidth and high latency. Three-dimensional 3D worlds, stereoscopic video streams, interactive metaverses — all these scenarios require communication channels. Lags and “friezes” could destroy the effect of presence, and the low resolution could reduce the realism of what was happening. With the advent of 10G, these barriers are rapidly becoming a thing of the past.
The new network provides symmetrical ultra speeds and near-zero latency, exactly what the XR industry has been missing. Previously, many VR/AR applications remained experimental due to technical limitations, but now they can become widespread. Imagine virtual classrooms where the teacher and students are in a single VR space, or holographic meetings with colleagues from different countries – all this is able to work without suspensions and delays, as if the participants are really nearby.
For developers of immersive applications, 10G means the opportunity to realize the wildest ideas. For example, “XR on demand” services are already emerging — when extensive virtual environments are generated and broadcast to the user on demand, without lengthy downloads, like streaming video. Startups in China and other countries are experimenting with multiplayer games and metaverses running through the cloud: lag-free games, click-through XR environments, and interactive streams are just the beginning. Previously, such things required expensive local infrastructure or powerful PCs for each user; with 10G, it’s enough to have a headset or screen, and content arrives over the network instantly.
From smartphone to glasses: the coming transition and the plans of the tech giants
One of the most revolutionary ideas that 10G is helping to bring to life is the gradual transition from smartphones to wearable XR devices, primarily augmented reality glasses. A few years ago, it seemed like a fantasy, but now industry leaders are seriously talking about it. According to media reports, Apple and Google are well aware that smart glasses will eventually replace the smartphone as the user’s main personal device. Apple is already investing huge resources in this area: it is known that they have hundreds of engineers working on AR glasses, and CEO Tim Cook has made AR development a top priority. According to the estimates of Apple’s top managers themselves, by about 2030, augmented reality glasses will be able to displace the iPhone and other phones, at least in developed markets.
Why are tech giants so “obsessed” with this idea? The fact is that glasses (or light headsets) can provide a fundamentally different experience of interacting with the digital world. Instead of looking down at the smartphone screen, we will see digital content right on top of the real world — navigation tips on the road, holograms of interlocutors in front of us, popup hints and augmented reality objects around us. This format promises a much more natural and “pervasive” use of technology. And, of course, the most powerful data transmission channels are needed for its implementation. 10G will become the very “pipe” through which huge volumes of AR content will flow: interactive holograms, high-definition video, spatial sound, and more — all in real time.
Prototypes and first versions of devices are already appearing on the market, bringing us closer to this era. For example, in 2023, the American company Apple showed its first mixed reality product, the Vision Pro headset, and lighter AR glasses are on the way. Competitors are also active: Meta (recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation) is actively promoting a line of Ray-Ban Stories glasses and developing projects codenamed Hypernova (expected smart glasses with a display), companies like Xreal (Nreal) have already released AR glasses for watching videos and playing games with a phone connection.
Obviously, the mass distribution of such glasses will go hand in hand with the development of networks. Glasses will become a new “window” into the digital world, but clouds and 10G networks will begin to play the role of a powerful smartphone in their pocket. Inside the glasses themselves, computing resources will be minimal (so that they remain light and stylish), and everything “heavy” — graphics, neural networks, data processing — will take place on remote servers and be transmitted to the user instantly via a high-speed channel. In other words, 10G is a necessary foundation, without it the era of Apple Glass and similar devices simply won’t take off.
Cloud and XR: a new stage of development (Pixel Streaming, Cloud XR)
One of the most exciting consequences of the development of 10G will be the rise of cloud technologies for immersive solutions. We are talking about an approach when everything heavy — 3D rendering and calculations – is performed not on the user’s device, but on a powerful server (or distributed in the cloud), and a ready-made video stream is transmitted to the user. User actions (head turns, clicks) are sent back to the cloud. This principle is called Pixel Streaming. (that is, “pixel streaming”) — it was implemented in the Unreal Engine from Epic Games and similar platforms. In fact, this is streaming of a game or application, similar to cloud gaming services (such as NVIDIA GeForce Now or Google Stadia), but tailored to interactive 3D worlds, up to VR.
Why haven’t such solutions been widely used before? Again, due to network limitations. But today the picture is changing. 5G, and even more so 10G, provides the very channel that makes pixel streaming viable for the XR. Experts note that the use of 5G networks with their high bandwidth and low latency significantly improves the performance and availability of Pixel Streaming. And in the order of the numbers achieved in 10G networks, we can talk about the complete removal of infrastructure barriers. Developers can now combine Pixel Streaming and XR technologies to create even deeper and more interactive experiences, such as realistic digital twins of cities or factories that can be connected from any device.
Companies are already releasing tools for cloud XR. NVIDIA is promoting the CloudXR platform, which allows streaming VR/AR content to mobile devices and headsets with a quality indistinguishable from a “direct” connection. It is based on powerful NVIDIA RTX-based GPU servers that encode and send images to the client, and smart algorithms that adapt to the network state to minimize lag and avoid quality loss. Simply put, CloudXR “breaks the chains” that keep VR and AR tethered to a computer, and allows to transfer immersive experiences to wireless devices while maintaining stunning graphics. The key requirement are high-performance networks, previously 5G was primarily intended, but now a fixed 10G broadband can be called an ideal candidate. NVIDIA explicitly states that using low-latency broadband networks (like 5G/10G), it is possible to broadcast large-scale professional-level VR/AR experiences to devices on the edges of the network.
What does this give the user and the business? Maximum flexibility and scalability. The user has the opportunity to immerse themselves in any, even the most complex virtual world without buying an expensive computer or console: all they need is a headset or even just a browser screen plus a good Internet connection. Business needs easier content distribution: it is enough to update the server application, and all users will receive an update immediately without installing patches. And more — intellectual property protection (3D models and code remain on the server, which makes piracy more difficult) and performance control (you can guarantee the desired FPS and quality, since the hardware is set on the server).
In the context of 10G, it is particularly important that such a network allows to serve a large number of high-quality XR streaming sessions simultaneously. If a household gets a 10 Gbit/s channel, then the bandwidth of data centers will grow to “feed” hundreds and thousands of simultaneous VR streams. Thus, we are approaching a model where entire virtual parks, museums, and conferences will be deployed in the cloud and accessible to anyone from home. This trend is directly consistent with the global trend towards metaverses — and 10G can become the very “high-speed elevator” that will take us to the next level of global digital communications development.
Strategic importance for Russian developers
Looking at all these technological trends, it is important to understand: for Russian teams and startups, the advent of 10G is a window of opportunity that cannot be missed. Although our XR industry is younger than the Western one, it has already proved itself with interesting cases. There are many talented developers and brave customers in the field of VR/AR in Russia, that is confirmed by the implemented projects from industry to culture. Now, with the advent of new infrastructure solutions, we have a solid foundation for further growth.
First, the entry barrier for the audience is reduced. Previously, only owners of powerful PCs or expensive helmets could afford high-quality VR, but as high-speed Internet spreads, our XR products will be able to reach a much larger audience – virtually anyone with a screen and access to the network. This means that the market will expand, the economic impact of projects will increase, and new niches for monetization will appear (for example, virtual concerts, online presence tourism, subscription-based cloud VR gaming – all of this can become a reality as soon as the infrastructure allows).
Secondly, Russian companies have a chance to be proactive. Technological leaps are fertile ground for market leaders to change. When everything changes (whether it’s the transition from PCs to smartphones, or now from smartphones to XR), newcomers and non-core teams have a chance to offer fresh ideas and solutions ahead of mastodons, who are not always flexible. In our country, we have strong competencies in mathematics, physics, and engineering, and XR requires a synthesis of various fields. Add government support to this (a course towards digitalization, initiatives for the development of AI and metaverses), and we get a good starting position. The main thing is not to lock ourselves in and look beyond the market: to create products with an eye not only to the domestic consumer, but also globally competitive ones.
Finally, the development of 10G networks within the country (which, hopefully, is not far off) will help eliminate digital inequality between regions. Immersive services can become available anywhere — from a megalopolis to a small city — with a high-quality connection. This opens up opportunities for distributed development teams (who can live anywhere, working through VR meetings), for remote learning with the effect of presence, for virtual tourism, when, say, a student from the Urals puts on a headset and finds himself on an interactive tour to the Metaermitage or at the cosmodrome. The powerful network + XR erases geographical barriers within the country. For our vast country, this is a particularly valuable property.
In conclusion, the launch of the 10G network is not just about megabits and milliseconds. This is a signal of the beginning of a new chapter of technological history. The chapter where the boundaries between the real and digital worlds are blurring even more, and the opportunities for creativity and business are increasing many times over. For the immersive technology industry, 10G is like timely rain for seedlings: it will accelerate the growth of all the seedlings that we have planted in recent years. And I am convinced that Russian XR developers will be able to take advantage of this opportunity to create really breakthrough products – perhaps the ones that will conquer the global market and which tomorrow will be talked about with pride, as today we talk about the first successes of 10G.
By Konstantin Negachev, CEO and Co-founder of VRT